8 CLIFFS—FISH. Dec. 1826. 
of soft clay, varying in colour and consistence, and disposed in 
strata running horizontally for many miles without interrup- 
tion, excepting where water-courses had worn them away. 
Some of the strata were very fine clay, unmixed with any 
other substance, whilst others were plentifully strewed with 
round siliceous gravel,* without any vestige of organic remains. 
The sea beach, from high-water mark to the base of the cliffs, 
is formed by shingle, with scattered masses of indurated clay of 
a green colour.} Between the high and low tide marks there is 
a smooth beach of the same green clay as the masses above-men- 
tioned, which appears to have been hardened by the action of 
the surf to the consistence of stone. Generally this beach 
extends for about one hundred yards farther into the sea, and is 
succeeded by a soft green mud, over which the water gradually 
deepens. The outer edge of the clay forms a ledge, extending 
parallel with the coast, upon the whole length of which the sea 
breaks, and over it a boat can with difficulty pass at low water. 
The very few shells we found were dead. Strewed about 
the beach were numbers of fish, some of which had been 
thrown on shore by the last tide, and were scarcely stiff. 
They principally belonged to the genus Ophidium; the 
largest that we saw measured four feet seven inches in length, 
and weighed twenty-four pounds. Many caught alongside 
the ship were, in truth, coarse and insipid; yet our people, 
who fed heartily upon them, called them ling, and thought 
them palatable. The hook, however, furnished us with a 
very wholesome and well-flavoured species of cod (Gadus). 
Attached to the first we found two parasitical animals; one 
was a Cymothoa, the other a species of Lernca, which had so 
* Some of the specimens of the clay strata consist, according to Dr. 
Fitton, who has kindly examined my collection, of a white marl not 
unlike certain varieties of the lower chalk ; and of a clay having many of 
the properties of fuller’s earth. The pebbles on the beach consist of 
quartz, red jasper, hornstone, and flinty slate, but do not contain any 
stone resembling chalk flint. 
+ Dr. Fitton considers these masses of clay to bear a resemblance to 
the upper green sand of England. 
